Talk:List of minor planets and comets visited by spacecraft

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Other minor planets and comets[edit]

I propose to add the few non-asteroid minor planets that are relevant (Pluto and 1999 TC36, from the top of my head) to this list. I think it would then also make sense to include the relevant comets, making it a list of all minor bodies in the Solar System that have been, are scheduled/proposed to be, or were once proposed to be visited by spacecraft. --JorisvS (talk) 09:43, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I take it then that there are no objections? --JorisvS (talk) 21:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No objection from me — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.49.130.208 (talk) 06:18, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oh boy do I object! I object I I object I object I object!! Pluto is NOT an asteroid. Nor is it a minor body. It is a world in it's own right and has somewhat like five moons. An entire system. When New Horizons was launched, it was considered the ninth planet. Had it been considered a mere "asteroid" it wouldn't have gotten the funding. I have deleted it.!!!!
We could make this a list of small Solar System bodies visited by spacecraft, which seems a more logical organization one of 'asteroids'. --JorisvS (talk) 14:03, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note that Pluto is a minor planet: all dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies that are not comets are minor planets. But it is indeed not an asteroid.
Pluto and Ceres will be the only dwarf planets visited by a spacecraft for a long time. Moreover, Vesta and Ceres kind of belong together because Dawn is a mission to both. Therefore, it does not make much sense not to mention the dwarf planets that will be visited by spacecraft on a list page of all visited small Solar System bodies. --JorisvS (talk) 17:23, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone ahead and merged the various lists that belonged together. --JorisvS (talk) 17:53, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Flyby AND orbit for Shomaker?[edit]

Isn't it redundant to add the flyby of Eros by NEAR Shoemaker since it also orbited? Orbit + landing, yeah, they are two different things. But since the orbit is mentioned, anyone can easily deduce that NEAR came close to the piece of rock.

Pluto[edit]

Pluto, however you describe it, is NOT, I repeat, is NOT, an asteroid!!!!! Ericl (talk) 13:56, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

May I say that, also, Ceres is not an asteroid, either. It is an asteroid belt object as much as Pluto is a Kuiper belt object. When Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet, Ceres was also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.118.63.141 (talk) 05:20, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ask for consensus, should Pluto be disrespected?[edit]

Please note that the "minor planet" number is WRONG, as it was discovered in 1930, second, also note, that it's far larger than all the other "minor planets" to be visited by a factor of three. Also, the article for Pluto, doesn't mention the number in the title, not now, nor has it ever. It is the consensus of the Wikipedia community that it shouldn't be referred to with the number or else it would have had it added to the title long ago.

So should we: 1)leave it as I have designated it, with the number in a footnote

2)remove it all together, as it's designation is still controversial, or

3)disrespect it and all it's fans by putting it at the bottom of the list where it's considered tiny and unimportant.

I myself go for number two. Remember the only place where Pluto was designated with a number was in this article, and it was just added this afternoon. Ericl (talk) 00:59, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ericl, I'm afraid you couldn't be more wrong about the designations. In case you didn't follow the link in the table's footer (the one you were tempering with) I'll post it here: Minor_planet_designation#History. To me, the only disrespectful thing I came across so far is the way you messed up the article's appearance. Com'on it's no big deal, the table is sortable, you know. Just click twice on "Dimensions in km" and Pluto will be at the top of the list. Hope you find peace... -- Rfassbind -talk 01:22, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ericl, your edit makes no sense whatsoever. The list is ordered by minor-planet number (not by relevance), which is 134340 for Pluto because it was not considered a minor planet until 2006. Its classification is really only controversial for those who do not understand its place in the Solar System (even people like Stern recognize the difference between Pluto and the major eight, he just likes to call all round things 'planets', not just the major eight). Fans are irrelevant in lists like these, it is not like they are ordered by number of fans or something. --JorisvS (talk) 08:34, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it's still very controversial. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said so last autumn, and the change in designation by the the International Astronomical Union was done in an underhanded manner, with vote after he end of the main conference after most of the attendees had left. It was shameful. Also, why is this this the only article where Pluto has the number? As to it being different from the "major eight", what about Mercury? it's the size of a moon (the eleventh largest body in the Solar System, not the eighth), and only is about a hundred KM larger than Callisto. If you're going to go for consensus and consistency, then move the main Pluto article to 134340 Pluto (dwarf Planet). If not, remove the thing from this article completely.Ericl (talk) 12:12, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So there is still public debate and someone (a historian, not an astronomer) who prefers a cultural (i.e. arbitrary) definition for the word 'planet'. Those people do not understand the structure of the Solar System and what those terms mean. Likewise, your remark about Mercury shows a total lack of understanding of what it means for an object to be a planet or dwarf planet. It is not about size, and certainly not about them needing to be larger than moons (Earth-sized moons are possible, but that simply means nothing about Earth not being a planet). Rather, planets dominate their orbital zones, whereas dwarf planets do not. Planets hence have no significant bodies in or near their orbits, or have them in resonance with them. Dwarf planets, on the other hand, share their orbits with many objects that are comparable in size. Orbital dominance is a function of not just mass, but also of orbital period. In the Kuiper belt, Pluto is not sufficiently massive to be dominant, but if were to orbit in Mercury's orbit, it would (though just barely). --JorisvS (talk) 15:08, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Ericl, I appreciate your conviction you display on this talk page. However, please bear in mind, that your sensed disrespect concerning Pluto turns into disrespecting astronomy conventions (see JorisvS above), wikipedia conventions (see WP:AT), and last but not least, your fellow wikipedian editors (see this revert). Please always seek consensus first on this topic and make sure your edits do not disrupt the articles source code. Thank you. -- Rfassbind -talk 15:24, 11 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Maybe C/2021 A1 (Leonard) and akasuki can also be added to the comet detection table.[edit]

He is so close to Venus, even close to some detectors specially designed for comets, although the detectors in the orbit of Venus have not yet released the detected information. But I think they can be added to the table of comets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.170.27.144 (talk) 07:11, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unnamed asteroid[edit]

Does anyone have any idea what Pioneer 10's "unnamed asteroid" is? SevenSpheres (talk) 17:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@SevenSpheres: I'm currently mid-development through a database I plan to reveal some time in the next year or so, but as an early test of it, I decided to investigate Pioneer 10 approaches. Not only can I not find the supposed approach, but its very nature is dubious to say the least. For one thing, 8.8 million km is not significant in the slightest, let alone for an asteroid only 800m in size. During its pass through the asteroid belt, Pioneer 10 came within 0.01 AU (1.5 million km) of around 40 currently-known asteroids. There was an approach on Aug 2 to 2017 BO40 of just 0.0073 AU (1.1 million km) but it's really not especially close or distinct. On Aug 1, it passed 0.00953 AU (1.4 million km) from 2010 TQ94, and on Aug 5, 0.00405 (600,000 km) from (249559) 3079 P-L. That last approach I think is worthy of note, as the asteroid had been discovered (but was lost) at the time of approach - if it hadn't been lost, it could very well have not only been a target for a much closer approach (a small planned mission detour) by Pioneer 10, but would have also been the very first asteroid visited by a spacecraft. Anyway, more on topic to the citation: a quick check with Horizons shows that the claim of the incidental Nike flyby is pretty dubious as well; horizons shows it never came closer than 0.257 AU (over 38 million km), and the approach happened on November 22, not December 2. Horizons accurately predicts Pioneer 10's encounter with Jupiter, so I'm thinking that this person somehow had poorly-dated ephemerides. Yes, I am saying the official NASA press release is wrong, but look at JPL Horizons and you'll see that its data is way less dubious.
Ideally, both currently listed Pioneer 10 approaches should be removed, and we should review what sort of 'incidental flyby' counts as significant enough for inclusion. Any spacecraft flying through the ecliptic asteroid belt (as Pioneer 10 did) is likely to encounter a currently-known asteroid within 0.01 AU every few days it's there. Omitting an asteroid that came within 200,000 km of the spacecraft just because it's not uncommon seems silly, but including all ~40 that Pioneer 10 came past seems equally silly. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 04:54, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been investigating this myself for the past year and a half (when I have free time). I reached out to NASA to see if they had any documentation regarding which asteroid this might be, but if it was ever written down it has since been lost and forgotten. I found some other sources saying it was an asteroid discovered in the Palomar–Leiden survey, which at the time listed nearly 2000 objects. 3079 P-L, however, was not discovered until 1984 (using the original images from 1960), so that can't be the one. The next closest I've found is 6805 P-L, at about 0.059 AU away on Aug 2. (The actual close approach was about 0.056 AU on Aug 4.) This matches pretty closely to the quoted 8.8 million km, compelling me to believe it is the one in question. But without a source this is just my original research, so I don't plan on adding it to any articles unless I can find confirmation.
As for Nike, I did find a NASA document from 1970 (before the P-L survey was published) looking for possible encounters with the 1735 asteroids whose orbits were known at that time. Since the launch date was not nailed down yet, they considered that as a variable. Otherwise it was a pretty rough analysis, not even considering the asteroids' orbital inclination. They were just trying to see if there was anything that warranted further investigation. For a launch on March 3, they calculated that Nike would come no closer than 7.1 million km (and it turns out the inclination is pretty significant here, so it was a lot farther than that).
The scientists at the time were investigating this because it was the first attempt at sending a spacecraft through the asteroid belt, and there was concern about crashing into something. And if not crashing, perhaps coming close enough to do any kind of up-close science. Pioneer 10 had an Asteroid/Meteoroid Detector that could detect small objects close by or larger objects a little farther away. But it was determined that no known asteroids would come close enough to be detected, let alone pose a hazard for the spacecraft.
With all that said, I'm ok with removing Nike and the "unnamed asteroid" from this article. They happened to be the closest encounters they knew of at the time, but they were not part of the mission in any way. --Lasunncty (talk) 06:44, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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